The next morning...
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"...Wh...what happened, Leafy? Where did Coiny go?," I mumble in confusion, sitting up to face her.
"It's a new day now, and Coiny went somewhere else to go sleep for the night. After Pin stormed off yesterday, you passed out, and I was trying to wake you up, but you didn't come to, so I just gave up and took you to bed with me and decided to check on you in the morning."
I suddenly remember what must've caused me to pass out.
"It was another vision. Even though the other 2 were horrible, this one seemed to be especially triggering for me."
"Well, what happened in it?"
"This vision had 2 parts. In the first one, I was at this elementary school talking to this girl. She asked me my name, and I said Chloe. Then she told me that her name was Samantha, and asked me if I wanted to be friends and that we'd have lots of fun together. I said that would be cool and accepted, and then everything went black for several moments until the vision cut to Samantha screaming at me, calling me a mistake, a dirty stain, and a piece of trash before she slammed my head into a fountain across the hall from where we were standing. I started bleeding profusely and thought to myself about the fact that Samantha betrayed me, and then I wished I could die."
"So now it's certain that you have these visions whenever you meet someone new, but we still haven't come to the conclusion of whether these are just random dreams or meaningful memories. Did anything seem familiar in any of the visions you've had so far?"
"All of the visions I had, I experienced in first-person. I seemed to look the same in all of the visions, even though they were a little dark and hazy. From what I can tell, I had long violet hair reaching up to a couple inches below my shoulders, chocolate-brown skin, a turquoise sweater, and lavender leggings with hot pink slip-on shoes."
"OK. What did Samantha look like?" "From what I remember, she had straight blond hair reaching to her shoulders, a tank top striped purple and blue, gold hoop earrings, and dark blue jeans with light purple sandals."
Suddenly, Leafy's face brightens as if coming to a realization.
"If you look the same in all the visions, then now there's no doubt that these are memories. But that leaves 2 questions left: where are these memories from, and when were they created if you didn't experience these events at any point here in Goiky, and haven't currently been in this place for more than about 2 days?"
"*sigh*... Those are questions we just don't have the answers to yet, Leafy. We should get going soon."
After Leafy finishes eating breakfast, we head out walking aimlessly around the island, looking for any object I haven't seen yet.
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After a while, we spot 3 objects sitting on the ground in a group: a sponge, a rock, and a drop of water. They seem to be bored, staring out emotionlessly into the distance.
"Those 3 are Spongy, Rocky and Teardrop. Spongy is pretty fat and lazy, and he gets bullied a lot for his weight. His body is full of this nasty, greasy, smelly fluid, so that's really disgusting. He doesn't talk much, but when he does, those flabby cheeks of his garble up his speech so we can barely understand what he's saying. Rocky doesn't speak anymore; he mysteriously lost his voice after the first day of BFDI, and now he just sits or stands idly with a giant smile on his face; pretty weird, if you ask me. However, he does have a nasty habit of vomiting a LOT, so you should definitely watch out for that. Teardrop doesn't talk at all, and she gets bullied about that sometimes, but she's a pretty cool object when you get to know her. She can be kind of aggressive if she doesn't get her way, though."
"Interesting. I bet this'll be fun," I reply as we approach the trio.
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"Hey, guys...", Leafy awkwardly starts, with a hand behind her head. Spongy, Rocky and Teardrop don't even bat an eye at her, instead looking away with disgruntled expressions.
Leafy's been pretty anxious talking to anyone else besides me because of the Dream Island incident, but even though I feel bad about her receiving so much hostility from these other objects, I'm tired of her making my first impressions with them so awkward, so I cut her off before she starts to speak again.
"I know you guys have never seen me before, and you might have quite a few questions, but Leafy was trying to introduce me to you and explain why I'm here on this island. You see, I came here from some other place that I have supposed 'memories' of, but when I first came here, I had none of that supposed place or why or how I came here, but by getting to know everyone on this island, I'm recovering them and slowly unraveling this mystery. I hope we can be friends, though," I carefully explain.
At first, Spongy and Teardrop look at me as if I had grown 3 extra heads, with Rocky still having a huge grin plastered on his face. Then they smile brightly with sympathetic expressions, implying their acceptance of my situation.
"Wow, you're surprisingly taking this news well. I didn't think you guys would understand! After all, most of the other objects I met so far weren't exactly the nicest, except for Coiny and Bubble. So does this means you can be my friends, too?", I excitedly exclaim. They all smile even wider at me, and Teardrop gets up and shakes my hand. I found it strange how quickly these 3 objects were to become accepting of me, despite not knowing too much about me, and having gained that knowledge in such a short time, but from Leafy's depiction of Spongy, Rocky and Teardrop, they seem pretty chill. Besides that, I had only had 3 friends so far (Leafy, Bubble and Coiny), so to have 3 other objects that I can at the very least be on good terms with is something I could really use.
Satisfied with my conclusion, I wave goodbye to the 3 and head off with Leafy.
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But something feels incomplete. It seems as if there was something crucial that we missed. As Leafy is leading me across the lush green fields, I ponder my thought in my mind.
That's strange. I didn't have any vision... maybe there's nothing that they remind me of? Every vision I had before was at least vaguely related to the respective objects I met. Maybe there wasn't any memory I had that has anything to do with them?
I want to tell Leafy about what happened, but I need to let her know about something else.
"Leafy, if it's not too much to ask, I'd like to do the introducing myself. You seem pretty anxious to do it, anyway."
"Oh, OK. I was starting to get pretty uncomfortable with doing the talking myself, actually; what a relief."
After a few minutes of silent walking while I continue to reflect on the strange phenomenon, Leafy stops me, putting an arm in front of me.
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Just in front of us, we see 2 rather tall objects, one a shiny needle and the other a flower with 5 large, bright pink petals pointing and gesturing while yelling harshly at each other, but they don't seem to notice us.
"I told you not to call me Needy, Flower! What is your problem?," the needle screams in a high-pitched, squeaky voice similar to Ice Cube's.
"What's YOUR problem? I can call you whatever I want, Needy!," the flower retorts rudely with a mocking tone in her voice. Suddenly, the needle gives her a harsh slap to the face. "Don't call me Needy!", she yells angrily.
"Whatever, I can still call you what I WANT!," the flower sneers at her with a childish, whiny tone before walking away with a hand to her hips and an annoyed look on her face. That's when I decide to go over to the needle and comfort her, while Leafy stays back and watches.
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"...Hello, there! That was a pretty rough argument you had, huh?," I sympathetically ask. Needle quickly turns around and is immediately startled at my sudden appearance.
"Who are you?! Get away from me!", she hysterically screams.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down; I know you've never seen me before, but my name is Yogurt Cup. I came here to Goiky a few days ago through some mysterious circumstances I don't really know yet, and I've been trying to get adjusted ever since. Leafy took me around the area, trying to get me acquainted to the others, and I was just wandering around looking for someone else to meet until I ran into you. It wasn't easy explaining this to those other guys, but I hope you understand, at least."
Needle looks to be absolutely astonished by my explanation. With wide eyes, she hesitates briefly.
"Wow... that's a pretty weird story. Are you sure it's true?", she doubtfully asks me.
"It is, really; I'm not sure I can believe it either, I know. The craziest part about it, though, are these strange visions I have every time I finish getting to know someone. I personally believe that they could be memories of something, though," I eagerly explain.
"Well... I don't even know you very well right now, and this all sounds too crazy to be true, but I believe you if it's coming from yourself. Say, did Leafy tell you about the Dream Island thing with what she did?..."
"...Yes... what about it?", I hesitantly respond, with a tinge of worry in my voice.
"Well, I just thought that you would've hated Leafy for that, too. I personally don't hold it too much against her, because, and even though this may sound sappy, losing Dream Island isn't nearly as saddening as losing a friend, especially someone as kind and caring as Leafy. I'm just glad you feel that way about her, too, even if you weren't around during the show."
"You really think so? I've only met Coiny, Pin, Spongy, Rocky, Teardrop and the alliance girls. Even though all of them except Pin, Pencil, Match and Ice Cube like me, none of them ever said anything about them not hating Leafy except for Coiny. Even then, he only implied it when he was trying to get her to stop hating on Leafy."
"So, Pin doesn't even like Leafy anymore? That's pretty selfish of her..."
"She even hates me too because I don't hold Leafy's mistake against her. I don't know what her problem was."
"Oh, that's not good. I need to go have a talk with Pin sometime about that, then. But in the meantime, it was so fun to get to know you! You said your name is Yogurt Cup, right?"
"Yes. And, it was also really fun to get to know you too, Needle. But one last thing before I go; why don't you like to be called... that word that Flower called you?," I hesitantly question, making definitely sure I don't earn myself a hard slap.
"I'm glad at least you have the decency to not call me that name. But... I'm not comfortable with telling anyone why I don't like that name. I just can't do it...", she explains with a defeated sigh.
"Well, if it's your personal information that you don't feel comfortable sharing, that's OK. Well, I need to get going now, but again, it was nice talking to you!," I beam brightly before we wave goodbye to one another, and I walk off to go find Leafy, but before I do, I stop dead in my tracks again.
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"...Umm... Hi, there. I heard you talking with your friends across the room at lunch, and... I just thought that maybe we could be friends?..." "Well, I don't even see you very much in the school, but we could get to know each other better, right?" "...So I believe that's a yes? In that case, I'll get going now, but I'll see you after school..."
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When I snap out of my trance, I walk over to Leafy, who is waiting for me sitting on a small hill.
"So, what were you and Needle talking about? I noticed that you've been more interactive with her than anyone else you've met besides me."
"First I introduced myself and described the situation as usual, but then we talked about you and the Dream Island incident, and how it wasn't fair that even some of your friends hate you for it. She said she's going to confront Pin about it sometime soon."
"Wow. I was just expecting the usual quick friendly gestures, but you and Needle seem like you could be really great friends... which is, well... really great!" There is a bit of slight hesitation in her sentence, which is a little strange, but I ignore it.
"Yeah! It feels great to have someone I can be really close to rather than just on good terms with, like you." I thought I saw a tiny streak of red on Leafy's face for a moment, but I glance over and nothing is there. I ignore that as well and we head back on our quest to find more objects.
As night falls, the sky turns a beautiful very dark violet-blue hue, the stars glow with a magnificent bright shine, and the moonlight glistens brightly on the ground, adding a magical glowing effect. As such, I am beginning to get tired.
"Hey, Leafy?"
"Yeah?"
"About that 'Flower' girl: will we be able to visit her tonight? She seems like too much of a pain to deal with, and I'm starting to get sleepy, too."
"Well, Flower is a mean, cruel, self-entitled brat who disrespects everyone and thinks that the world revolves around her, so we'll go visit her tomorrow instead, but until then, there's 2 more objects I'd like you to meet tonight," she hisses with a harsh tone, though it softens near the end of her sentence.
"Now, come on."
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"Now just hand me that wrench over there, TB. We're almost done..."
"All right, here you go! I can't wait to see what this rocket can do."
"And... there! My latest masterpiece is now complete! Who knows what planets we can travel to with this, you and I? We can explore the galaxy, go where no one else has ever gone before; we might even get to name a previously undiscovered celestial body!"
"Yeah... just you and I traveling the universe together... it sounds just wonderful..."
Not far away, Leafy and I watch the two objects, a tennis ball and golf ball, have their conservation as the latter seems to have finished the construction of a medium-sized rocket. Truly impressed by the magnificent creation, I gaze at it in awe for several moments before turning to Leafy, who then starts to explain to me who the 2 objects are.
"Golf Ball is a super-genius; she's a professional philosopher and scientist, and she's also pretty skilled with math and technology, and she designs cool gadgets. Tennis Ball, on the other hand, isn't quite as intelligent as Golf Ball, though he's still pretty smart, and he's sweet and nice, but kind of dorky and rather clumsy, too. Golf Ball isn't exactly the easiest to get along with, though, so I don't think she'd like you much..."
"Well, with Golf Ball being so much smarter than everyone else, I could only expect that she has a prickly personality and poor social skills. It seems like so many super-smart people are like that."
"That's actually really interesting... how do you know all that?"
"I don't know for sure, but... I feel as though I'd known this for a really long time, the same way I already knew how to do every basic action like walking and talking when I first got here. Maybe it's related to the visions in some way..."
"That's a good theory. You should ask Golf Ball about it." Suddenly, Golf Ball abruptly turns toward us.
"...W-What are you doing here, Leafy? Can't you see I'm putting the finishing touches on my project? Also, who's that with you?; they don't appear to be familiar..." Golf Ball screams, frightened by seeing us suddenly out of nowhere.
"Oh; hey, Leafy. Sorry about Golf Ball, she's been working nonstop on this rocket today because we were almost finished and didn't have much left to do, so she's been pretty cranky lately."
"Hey, Tennis Ball and Golf Ball; I know this is unexpected, but this is Yogurt Cup, and she's new around Goiky. I just came by here because I'm trying to get her acquainted with everyone else on the island," Leafy calmly explains. She then motions to Tennis Ball for them to go away and leave Golf Ball and I alone, and they walk off someplace.
"...Hello, Golf Ball. I know you're not familiar with me yet, but let me continue to explain the situation. Every time I finish getting to know someone, I have these strange visions that feel so familiar for some odd reason; I feel they might be memories. However, Leafy told me that you're a scientist and that you specialize in technology, math and philosophy, so hopefully you know better than anyone else how to diagnose this situation?"
"Well, you'll have to explain your situation beforehand, and then we'll see what I can do. First things first: how long has it been since you first came here?"
"Almost 3 days, I think."
"So you couldn't have made many memories here... tell me about all of the visions you had." "OK..." I sit down with Golf Ball and begin to talk.
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"What was taking you so long? Sit down and get your homework done!"
"But I am do-"
"LIAR!"
"Ow! Stop!... please... why won't you believe me for once?..."
"Stop lying, will you? You always do this all the time!"
(Why can't I just have a normal life?...)
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"Come back here, idiot! Right NOW!"
"No. I don't want to be forced to do things for you anymore."
"I said NOW!!"
"Leave me alone, please..."
"Listen, you stupid brat!"
"Stop! OW! OUCH!"
(Just make it stop... I hate living like this so much...)
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"And what's your name?
"...Chloe. My name is Chloe. "Chloe, huh? Well, you wanna be friends? I promise we'll have lots of fun together! My name is Samantha."
"...O-OK. Cool!"
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"You're a mistake, Chloe! A dirty stain! Piece of trash!"
"S-she... banged m-my head o-on the f-f-fountain... She b-betrayed m-me, m-made me believe w-we were real f-friends just to d-destroy it... I just wish I could DIE."
"The worthless piece of trash blacked out, what a shame. Oh, well..."
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"...Umm... hi, there. I heard you talking with your friends across the room at lunch, and... I just thought that maybe we could be friends?..."
"Well, I don't even see you very much in the school, but we could get to know each other better, right?"
"...So I believe that's a yes? In that case, I'll get going now, but I'll see you after school..."
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"That's all of them right now. When I went to go visit Spongy, Rocky and Teardrop, I didn't have a vision somehow."
"I'm not yet sure how you couldn't have had a vision in that instance, but if these visions really are memories, they must have been created in some other dimension in some other life. That seems to be the only plausible explanation for this phenomenon."
"What? That sounds crazy! You have to be joking!"
"I know it may initially sound silly, but I'm about to explain. You see, existence is made up of a rectangular panel known as the plane of reality and everything that is, and in it, there exists an infinite number of dimensions, and each individual dimension has an infinite number of universes, which, relative to one another, are all alternate universes. What makes each universe in a dimension different, or alternate, from one another is what's known as universal rules, which is the special law or laws that makes an individual universe unique from its alternates. Now for the second part; every living thing in the whole of existence is an immortal soul. Every time a living being dies, their soul gets removed out of the dead body they spent their life in and is temporarily sent into a kind of purgatory, which is just a black void just outside the plane of reality. Once there, the soul goes to live their next life by choosing what dimension to go to during life, with their selection of choices depending on which dimensions they've learned about through their previous lives. If the soul hasn't decided exactly where to go before their previous life ended, they will be sent to a random universe of a random dimension. This process of "infinite" life repeats infinitely for all eternity. Most importantly, when starting a new life, all memories of the soul's previous life will be completely wiped from its memory. However, you seem to be able to remember particularly crucial memories from what could be your past life."
"Well, now I know how I got here, but I still have a couple questions... how come I'm able to remember memories from this "past life" I apparently had before this if nobody else in Goiky seems to be able to do the same? And why can't I remember why I chose to come here to this 'animate object dimension'?"
"Don't worry, I can answer both of those. For the first question, you're able to 'unlock' the ability to remember particularly striking memories from your previous life when you discover the secret of existence, which is simply just knowing the full process of what happens when you die, which I'd already described to you, and the only way to do that is to either have someone who already knows tell you, as I just did, or to live through enough lives to finally learn the secret of the universe on your own, but it seems that the latter became apparent for you in the life you lived right before this one. It's the only piece of knowledge to be learned in the plane of reality that you don't forget when you die. And, I do have the memory-tracing ability too, because I also know the secret of the universe; otherwise, I wouldn't know any of this information and wouldn't have been able to explain the answers to your questions."
"So... what you're saying is that you discovered the secret of existence in some past, and now that I've completely discovered the 'secret of existence' too, I can trace the most important memories I made in the life I lived before this one? It's really cool how I'm not the only one who knows the 'secret'... but then there's another question: how come my 'memory-tracing ability' only triggers these visions when I talk to someone I've never seen before? It seems unusually specific..."
"Before I get to that, I still need to answer the second question; you can't yet discover why you chose to make a new life here because you need to recover another certain memory in order to find that out. Judging from the events in the visions you told me about earlier, you were miserable and resentful because you couldn't take the emotional trauma of what happened in your past life, and most likely committed suicide because of that, so you'd need to acquaint yourself with someone of such a nature to find out why you decided to start your next life here. That is, someone mean, arrogant and ruthless, just like the people in the visions you described to me."
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind. What about the third question?"
"I didn't forget, I'll answer that too. Your memory-recovering ability only triggers when talking to others you've never met before because you naturally need a technique to bring these visions back to your train of thought. You don't just automatically recover all the vital information; you have to recover it manually, and the method of doing so is finding connections between certain others that relate enough to these memories that they "return" to your mind, as you already learned. However, you don't remember the undiscovered visions before you uncover them, which makes it nearly impossible to know what type of person you need to interact with next to recover the remaining memories. I say nearly because you can still try to analyze memories you've already uncovered to attempt to predict what type of memories the remaining ones are, but it's usually too unpredictable, as it's most likely that not all of the possible memories are related, though that isn't quite as much true in your case. I say that that isn't as much true in your case because most of the memories you have so far are related to one another in that they describe negative points in your past life. But anyways, long story short, the memories are already there in the deepest corner of your mind, but you just have to "activate" them. That information that you have to recover manually includes your knowledge of the secret of existence, which is why you were able to get the memory-recovering ability that comes from knowing the secret of existence without being aware of the fact that you know it. So, now that I've answered all your questions and concerns, I suppose you'll be allowing me to return to my work now?"
"Of course, Golf Ball. You've helped me with my problem more than anyone else ever possibly could, and thanks to you, I'll finally be able to solve this big mystery. And you know what? I think I could give you something back in return, even if it isn't much." I lean over and give Golf Ball the biggest hug I could possibly manage.
"You know, I'm not usually fond of physical affection, but... I think I actually might like it from someone as kind as you. Thank you, Yogurt Cup."
"No problem. I don't think this means we could be friends, does it...?"
"In most other cases, I'd sternly decline such a request, but I feel compelled only to accept. So, this does mean we can be friends," she admits with a sheepish grin.
As she turns back to her rocket, I smile brightly, get up and wave goodbye to Golf Ball as I run off to go find Leafy as the night sky grows ever darker.
I have so much to tell her.
(A/N): This is it. The longest chapter in the book (ever)! I horribly regret how long it took to get this chapter out, but my phone broke and I'm not able to use the family computer nearly as often, so I wasn't able to write the story as quickly. But, at least I said in the last chapter to expect weeks before this chapter, right? Heh...
animatic_fanatic